Thom Browning
ARTIST AND PRODUCER
ABOUT
I am a Brisbane based artist specialising in the creation of theatre, installation and arts learning experiences for children and their communities. My experience spans performance, installation, music, and creative technology, whilst working as a director, producer, facilitator, curator, devisor, sound and video designer, technician, and DJ.
My career has seen over 180,000 people engage with my work, from Esperance to Mount Isa, and from Bangalore to Copenhagen. For me, the space in which children and artists meet is dynamic, rich and full of potential. It is a place for radical and transformational ideas, a site of deep complexity and reflection, and a model for intergenerational exchange.
I am the Artistic Director of Imaginary Theatre, a company creating contemporary arts experiences for children aged 0-12 and their adults since 2006.
In 2020, I created and produced Imaginary’s groundbreaking work of interactive installation, A Curious Arcade, premiering at Brisbane Festival. This unique installation of storytelling machines is an array of fun-fair curiosities that engage intergenerational audiences short interactive, choose-your-own adventure radio-play experiences.
In 2018, Imaginary Theatre were engaged as the co-producer of the Australian production of Punchdrunk’s ‘The Lost Lending Library’ for Festival 2018 Gold Coast, the Arts and Cultural Festival of the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. As Associate Director, I led a team of Australian creatives to stage the production in two schools, as well as deliver the first ever festival version of the production, including the creation of ‘Coastal Curiosities’ a new Punchdrunk work serving as a theatrical premise for ‘The Lost Lending Library’ at the festival. The Lost Lending Library returned in 2020 as a work for families at Brisbane Festival.
My experience with Punchdrunk has been a significant development in my ongoing practice creating contemporary works of immersive theatre for children. My 2015 work ‘The Voice in the Walls’ was commissioned by QUT Precincts was an audio immersive, site specific performance for 9-12 year olds at Old Government House. Young audiences were equipped with headphones and a wireless device while they traversed the halls of this historic home, immersed in a thrilling narrative in which they played crucial roles.
My experiential theatre work for 2-5 year olds ‘보인다 I See You’, created in collaboration with artists in Brisbane and Seoul, had its world premiere at the Out of the Box Festival at QPAC in June 2016 before touring regionally to the Events Centre Caloundra, Redland Performing Arts Centre, Logan Entertainment Centre, Arts Centre Gold Coast. The works South Korea premiere took place at the ASSITEJ Korea Festival, Seoul in August 2016.
In 2015 I directed the performance installation ‘World Images’ for acclaimed Danish company ‘Theatre Workshop Madam Bach’ which has since been presented 30 venues across Denmark, as well as internationally at Visioni di Teatro, Visioni di Futuro Festival Bologna, Italy, Festival Kaolin & Barbotine, Limoges, France, The Shanghai Children’s Art Theatre, China, the Ricca Ricca Festival in Okinawa Japan, the World Kids Theatre Festival in Shizuoka, Japan, at the Baboro Festival in Galway, Ireland at KITOKS Festival, Vilnius, Lithuania and the ASSITEJ Korea Summer Festival, Seoul, and the Sisimiut Art Centre in Greenland.
In 2011 I took part by invitation in an Artist Residency at Kijimuna Festa in Okinawa, one of Asia’s most highly regarded children’s festivals. In 2012, I was awarded a Brisbane Lord Mayor’s Young & Emerging Artists Fellowship to undertake three months of professional development and residencies at children's companies and festivals in Europe, and an Assistant Director residency with Rose Myers at Windmill Theatre. In 2014 I was invited as one of 23 artists to participate in the ‘Next Generation’ program at the World Congress & Festival event of ASSITEJ International, the international peak body for performing arts for young people. Also in 2014, I undertook an Associate Director residency at Patch Theatre in Adelaide. In 2016, I was a nominee for Brisbane City Council’s Arts Innovation Award.
AWARDS
Brisbane Lord Mayor's Young and Emerging Artist Fellowship - 2013
Brisbane City Council Innovation Award - Nominee - 2016 (with Luke Lickfold for Imaginary Theatre)
ASSITEJ International ‘Next Generation’ Leadership Development Recipient, 2014.
ASSITEJ Germany ‘Directors in TYA International Symposium’ Participant, 2019.
